- December 20, 2024
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St. Patty did an aces job of driving all the snakes out of Ireland, and I for one was thrilled about it. So I grabbed a tube of green food coloring and got ready to celebrate.
I knew going in: This might get messy.
A guy like me, I guess you could say I always sort of fancied myself something of an amateur mixologist. Even as a kid, you got me in front of one of those self-serve soda machines and I was in my glory, mixing and matching flavors until I had a cupful of glorious brown sugar-drink, a little bit of every flavor from every soda in the entire world.
When I think back on it now, I can’t help but see it in some dreamy new light, as romantic as it was gritty.
My part of town, we used to call them Suicides, and nobody made them like me. You wanted to get your mitts on an all-in-one pop that’d put hair on your chest, you slunk into my smoky back office and put in a request. No contracts. Just a handshake. Simple.
And my technique was legendary.
With a soda-cup holster tied to my hip, I’d stare down soda machines from under the rim of my fedora. I’d gnaw on a toothpick, draw a fresh cup then fly into action. One-eighth orange soda — BLAM!; 1/4 Mountain Dew — POW!: 2/7 Hi-C — KABOOM! And if they had it, maybe even a splash of iced tea — you know, if you’re into that sort of thing.
Maybe my math wasn’t too good, but I had saps all over town showing up on my stoop and telling me sob stories, begging to trade Pokemon cards or pogs for just one more Cavaliere Suicide.
But I told most of ’em to scram.
“I’m outta the game!” I’d growl, hitting a pack of candy cigarettes on my hand and popping one between my kisser. “I’m into soaps now.”
And I was. Soaps were the next soda, but I seemed to be the only one around sharp enough to see it. In my parents’ shower, I’d mix all different kinds of cocktails: shampoos, body washes, conditioners, you name it.
I knew that if I found just the right combination of Pantene, chips of Irish Spring and drops of Dove, I’d create the next Great American Soap. A Super Soap. And I’d sell it, right there from the tub.
My parents played their cards right, I might even throw a few clams their way to cover my share of the water bill.
Needless to say, I was a squeaky clean, and adorable, kid. But even though my soap scheme didn’t materialized, my flair for mix-perimention never died.
Last weekend, while everyone was adding green to their beers, I played the renegade and added it to a glass of red sangria. Then I stood back. A seasoned mad scientist like myself, I knew concoctions like these can sometimes be volatile. And the last thing I needed was to be shelled with sangria shrapnel.
I waited, and stirred. But the red was too dark. No colors were changing.
It hit me a couple-odd hours later that green wasn’t a primary color, and I had been a fool.
Had I lost my flair for mixology? I wondered. Did I ever even have it?
It was around this time I started resenting St. Patty and everything he stood for. Snakes out of Ireland? I thought. Are you serious? I was done with this holiday, and its forced corned beef-eating and green beer-drinking ways.
What did it all mean, anyway? Then I decided, right then and there, that I’d only celebrate holidays in the future whose messages weren’t completely distorted.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have egg paint and rabbit-shaped chocolate to buy, to celebrate the Resurrection.
BY MIKE CAVALIERE | ASSOCIATE EDITOR
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